Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



ot three cocks would be sprung at once, and then a perfect feu de joie went 

 on. Tearing, stumbling, scratching, on I went. 



"Take care, y'r honour; mind that drop in front av ye," cried Mike; and 

 twenty yards ahead I came upon one of those little precipices feathered to 

 the very top with bracken almost up to my shoulders. It was a sheer drop 

 of forty or fifty feet, with fragments of rock half grown over with moss and 

 fern at the bottom ; but for Mike's warning over I should have walked. 



As I looked over I saw one of the spaniels very busy at the bottom, and 

 "Whoop" cried Mike as a couple of cocks rose into the air together, one 

 dodging to the right down the ravine, and the other taking back to the left. 

 The place was open before me, the birds just level with me ; it was a lovely 

 shot. I pitched the gun well forward at the dodger to the right. I couldn't 

 see for the smoke what happened to him, so I wheeled about and sent the 

 second dose after the levanter to the left. 



"Whoop ! Hvirroo ! That's grand intirely !" 



" Did I get either of 'em, Mike ? I couldn't see for the smoke," I called 

 out." 



" Get ayther av 'em ! Sure ye got the pair av 'em, both ; as nate a 

 thing as ever I seen; and the Captain can't bate it. Sake him, ma 

 bouchal, sake him ; sure that owld bitch makes woodcocks, she does." 



The birds were soon to hand, and on we went again. Meantime^ my 

 friends below were not idle, and a cheery call from one to the other now 

 and again conveyed warning of a cock crossing, but, though a good many 

 came to grief, more than as many got away — some quite unseen by the 

 gunners, and some getting out of the charge cleverly, while others were 

 missed handsomely, and some saluted under difficulties which ensured 

 their escape. 



Though the travelling was nasty at times, it was splendid sport. Now 

 and then a cock would go skewing and twisting up through the trees in a 

 way that made one almost despair of getting on to him, when a quick toss 

 of the gun and almost a snap shot amongst the tree tops would fetch him 

 headlong down on the moss, to one's huge self -congratulation. Now one 

 would flop up under one's nose, like an owl, and seem to hang in the air ; 

 and, to your intense disgust, you would miss him, all because he was too 



